These things provide a welcome distraction

Aug 03, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

The things that make headlines are those things that are not your everyday cup of tea. That is what news is about. So it was that when a man killed two members of the gay community then killed himself, the eyes of the entire country were on the issue.
The people in the news found the situation intriguing. They found the interviews by the so-called leaders of the gay community funny. I saw a recording by one named Otisha and I smiled when he said that every member who works outside St George’s Cathedral is armed to the teeth with choppers and knives. The icing was when he said that they are good when it comes being athletes.
I had to laugh, because I can imagine these people having to run from just about everything ranging from over-amorous partners to the police to the people who would like to see the end of them. Guyana is a tolerant society. Someone once said to me that when the people who did were shipping slaves, they hastened to get rid of the troublesome ones, so the bad ones landed in Haiti and Jamaica. The more docile of the lot came to Barbados and Guyana. Their genes still prevail to this day.
I remember when members of the gay community in Jamaica planned a march on Kingston. There were reports of people sharpening machetes and waiting for this parade. Good sense prevailed and the parade was called off.
If that had been the case in Guyana the news would have spread and the whole country would have come out to enjoy the spectacle. Many would have had a good laugh while cheering on the parade. And so it was when one of the gay people killed during that episode was buried. I remember hearing the news of the funeral circulating and I could imagine the spectacle.
I have seen the photographs. There were no pastors or priests to perform the last rites, but there were many comments and embarrassment for one young man at least. He was accused of blighting the dead gay because he was the last person to share some favour.
But joke aside, I am astonished at the way members of our gay community actually go out of their way to attract attention. They would do the most outlandish things in the true sense of performing for the audience.
I remember the late Andre Sobryan so embarrassing a policeman that he, the policeman, decided that he was going to forego any charge he had planned. Andre was riding his motor scooter when he must have committed some traffic infraction. The policeman duly stopped him and took possession of his licence with the threat of a charge.
He didn’t bargain for what he got. Andre put on one of those pum pum shorts and marched into the police station. He then called for the policeman by name. When the policeman failed to come forward Andre, at the top of his voice proclaimed, “Tell he that Andre come to see he and he know why.”
The suggestion was enough to send the Brickdam Police Station into an uproar. The embarrassed cop actually had to beg a colleague to carry Andre’s licence to him with the message that everything is alright.
That might explain why the police did not try too hard to break up a protest the members of the gay community staged the other day. No one wanted to face any member of the gay community when embarrassment looms.
I was a little boy when there was a gay wedding in Guyana. The group included Banga Mary, Ellis Pellew, Bundarie and some others who, had they been alive today, would have been close to 80. They rented a hall at Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara for the reception, and actually lived there for a while. My mother nearly slapped me silly when I tried to peep at the proceedings.
I was a grown man when Bundarie died in a funeral procession for another notable character. He was drunk and wining-I see that they call it twerking these days-when he fell off a truck.
I am not homophobic, so whatever the gays do is their business. What I cannot understand is the varied reaction to male gays and female gays. Of course, I have seen women who actually look like men going after young girls who seem to have no objection. In fact, at one time I could swear that many of the young girls who haunt the night clubs were gay.
They would openly do things to each other that would make ordinary people wonder at the relationship. And talking to quite a few I found that they actually liked girls. We don’t pay much attention to them because they do not exhibit themselves like their male counterparts; most are not openly aggressive, although not so long ago a young man threw a corrosive liquid on a pretty girl for making a move on his girl, or so he said.
These things provide a welcome distraction to the other things that make life in Guyana miserable at times.

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